It is now four years since the international print editions of the Guardian and Observer ceased publication; last Thursday their online heir was officially launched, as the Guardian’s international homepage – designed for readers outside the UK, the US and Australia – moved from the beta-test stage, which began in April.
Caspar Llewellyn Smith, our digital platforms editor, explained in a blogpost the decision to launch an international homepage. “Since the relaunch of our website earlier this year, our global traffic has grown by almost 20%, with more than two-thirds of our audience coming from outside the UK. While we already serve readers in the US and Australia with their own editions, we hope the international homepage will help theguardian.com become a destination for readers living elsewhere, giving them the option to see a more global selection of stories when they visit the site.
“We began the beta trial before the UK general election in May because we knew our UK homepage would be dominated by election stories, not all of which would be of interest to an international audience. Over this period, 50% of traffic from outside our core markets visiting theguardian.com was directed to a separately edited international homepage. The beta test allowed us to gauge the appetite for a more international presentation of news; after all, 40 million unique users based outside the UK, Australia and the US visit theguardian.com each month.”
The international homepage is smaller than the other three editions, partly because it will serve a large number of different devices and data connections – it was felt that the pages should be light and easy to load on all those devices.
The page will be produced by editors in the UK, the US and Australia, aiming to deliver whatever they see as the biggest international news events of the day. Roughly one-third of visitors to the Guardian website come from the UK, a further third from the US, and the final third from the rest of the world.
Llewellyn Smith said in his blog: “We know that some [readers] specifically visit theguardian.com for a UK perspective on the news. Any readers who tried the international edition during the beta phase and opted out will continue to be directed to the UK edition. Readers will also be able to select their edition of choice from the edition switcher in the top right hand side of the desktop or the ‘...’ button on mobile.”
The new setup will also enable experimentation by, for example, targeting audiences around the world with different content. At some time in the future – who knows? – we may even be able to do this domestically. When the Guardian launched a northern print edition in the early noughties, many readers were angry because they didn’t want to be “fobbed off” with a “parochial” Guardian. It didn’t prosper. Digital editions that can focus on an area to highlight local news may appeal to one reader in Manchester but not the neighbours – they can switch to the broader UK homepage. But that’s just an idea, not a plan.
Reaction to the beta website has on the whole been positive. However, we have had one complaint so far from a non-UK user who is unhappy with their edition being switched automatically, even though there is the option to switch back manually. They wrote: “Can you please confirm that visitors to the Guardian website from Ireland (Irish IP addresses) will not be redirected (illiberally) to the international edition of the website.
“The Guardian newspaper (hard copy) is and has long been sold in Ireland. Rather than redirecting Irish visitors to the website to the international edition, the UK edition, I suggest, should instead be made a UK and Ireland edition. This would fit more with the history of the sale of the paper in Ireland and the cultural connections (most UK newspapers, TV and radio stations are available in Ireland and are consumed by Irish people).”
In fact it has always been the case that readers have been directed to a particular Guardian web front based on their IP (internet protocol) address; this practice is not limited to Ireland.
We once had complaints because, for historical reasons, news from the Republic of Ireland appeared on the national news pages of the Guardian in print. That no longer happens. I think any suggestion that we lump the Republic of Ireland in with the UK would meet with an equal and opposite response. A digital Ireland edition may be a long way off yet.
